Improved car-coupling



JOHN F. SPAULDING, OF RUTLAND, VERMONT.

Letters Patent No. 89,089, dated April 20, 1869 IMPROVED CAR-COUPLING.

The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and making part of the same.

To all persons to whom these presents may come:

Be it known that I, J on F. SPAULDING, of Rutland, in the county of Rutland, and State of Vermont,

have invented a new and useful Improvement in Railway-Carriage Couplings; and I do hereby declarethe same to be fully described in the following specification, and represented in the accompanying drawings, of which- Figure 1 is a longitudinal section,

Figure 2, a horizontal section, and

Figure 3, a front end view of a railway-carriage draw-bar, provided with my improved coupling or shackle, and also with a coupling-link.

Within the draw-bar shown at A, as furnished with two months a b, I arrange a sliding-carriage or hunter, B, having a spring, 0, to force it forward.

The carriage or hunter may be sustained by friction-rollers c o, to run in grooves (Z (I, made in the upper and lower bars cf of the draw-bar.

In the place of such rollers, flanges or slides may be extended from the hunter into the said grooves.

In advance of the front end of the hunter, there are holes, g, made down through the upper and lower bars 0 f of the draw-bar, such holes being to receive 'the link-pin D. v

There projects from the front end of the bunter,'and at its upper part, an ear, E, which, when the hunter is at the extreme of its forward movement, comes directly underneath the pinpassage of the upper bar 6 ofthe draw-bar, and serves as a support for the lower end of the pin, when such pin is placed in the hole.

The said ear also answers to hold the pin in place when the link is coupled by it to the draw-bar, and

this the ear accomplishes by being pressed against the pin by the hunter and its spring.

By thus holding the pin in place, it will not beliable to be thrown out of the draw-bar, as sometimes happens when the carriage mayvrun over an obstruction on the railway.

Furthermore, the ear serves to set the hunter back of the link, so as to enable the latter to play freely inany direction without friction against or hindrance from the hunter.

The link, on .being driven into either mouth of the draw-bar, for the purpose of coupling two carriages, will be forced endwise against the hunter, and will press it backward, so as to withdraw its ear from underneath the pin, in order to allow the latter to fall down through the link, after which the hunter will advance toward the pin, and the ear will-rest against it and hold it firmly in place.

I make no claim to the combination of a movable tumbler with a draw-bar, such tumbler being to hold up the pin, in order that it may fall down through the link during the passage of the latter through the drawbar, and after the tumbler may have been forced from underneath the. pin.

What I claim as my invention, is-

The combination and arrangement of the ear E with the draw-bar, its sliding hunter B, and the operative spring, G, thereof, the whole being substantiallyas described.

JOHN F. SPAULDING.

' Witnesses:

N. P. Srmons, H. W. PORTER. 

